So i am trying to decide on two different video compression/resolution standards.

Test system: See My System Specs

The first one is for my tv shows. Now i've seen tv shows in both the standard, digital standard and 720p. To me i notice no real difference in the quality of the picture in digital standard vs 720p. Here i am leaning towards staying with my digital standard as tv seasons are massively long and large already and 720p i think will just eat up very little space left (about 300GB) on my TV storage hard drive (1.5 TB)

The second one is for movies. I've seen movies in both standard divx, 480p, 720p and 1080p. To me i have noticed a difference going up from divx to 480p (~700mb to ~1.5GB ). To my i am not sure if it is worth the video quality and increased storage space required to jump to 720p. 1080p bluray content does not interest me at all as i can tell absolutely no difference between 720p and 1080p especially if a graphics card on a computer is doing the up converting.

So my question then is, for tv should i stay digial standard (leaning towards this) or eat up tons of storage space going 720p. For movies, should i continue my 'upgrade' from divx to 480p or is 720p really worth the ~4GB per movie storage gobble.

I am a video/audio quality whore. For TV I prefer the 20Mbps h.264 (~6GB/hour) that I rip myself. If it doesn't air in Canada then I need at least a 720p HDTV rip. For movies I need an compressed bluray if the bluray was released. Else I need the actual DVDs. I refuse to download the 350p rips for TV/movies.

for me it's as much 1080p as possible. if there is no 1080p then 720p since 1080i is interlaced yuck. Also i try to get as much DTS stuff as it is much better than dolby since there is less compression in DTS.

h.264 is great for movies. A decent rip of a 2hr movie should weigh in at about 15gb for 720p. A very, very good rip will weigh in at about 25- 30GB for 1080p. Will you notice the dif between 30gb and 15gb rips? Depends on your tv. IF its under 60inches...I doubt it. Hell if its under 50" look into BDRips. That are in the under 10GB range!

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